Vegas Wits & Wagers is a new way to play the hit party game Wits & Wagers. Vegas adds as you can guess, more options on how to place bets on the various guesses players make to the questions. The main addition to Vegas Wit & Wagers is a huge game mat that is used to track the betting and where each answer goes. For those new to Wits & Wagers, this is a party game that asks a question with a numerical answer and players/teams have to guess the answer. This can result in crazy predictions or incredibly close answers that could mean winning the game. The goal may be to have the most money at the end, but truly the main goal in all Wits and Wagers games is to have fun. Before you call your friends and turn Poker night into Vegas Wits & Wagers night, I invite you to read along as I give you my take on Vegas Wits & Wagers by NorthStar Games.

Components Vegas Wits & Wagers is a new expansion of Wits & Wagers Party that adds a more deluxe feel to the game. The main addition to Vegas is the huge neoprene mat that will hold all the players bets and answers. Depending on the amount of teams/players, there are also 2 smaller mats that cover up betting spots on the board. Also added is a 7th player/team that will use the Elvis pad to write their answers because what is Vegas without Elvis? Because this was before production/Kickstarter, I only had a PDF file of the rules so I can not comment on the final layout/look of the rule book. Vegas also adds more questions to your already huge stack of question cards, just in case you somehow memorized all the answers. The rules in the PDF were highly illustrated and explained the changes in the game from the party version. The mat is very nice but does curl a little bit if it has been awhile since you last took it out of the tube to play. The mat does flatten eventually and still looks very nice to play on. Also if you flip over the mat, it has the original Wits & Wagers format to play on. This is nice if someone doesn't care for the Vegas style or maybe on family night. I find the mat to be very nice and a great addition if you are a Wits & Wagers fan.

Gameplay Vegas Wits & Wagers expands on the other version's gameplay. I am going to cover how to play Vegas which in turn will also teach the general idea behind how to play the other versions. Each game of Vegas has players or teams depending on player count, pick a player card and the associated 100 and 200 betting chips. One player will be the banker to make sure everyone receives their proper payouts after each question. Vegas will have 7 rounds to each game. 100 dollar poker chips will be placed on each of the 7 die spaces showing the round number. The amount of chips placed is the same as the number of that round. For example the 6 round space will get 6 chips.

The round will start by reading the question and each player or team writing down an answer and placing it face down. After everyone has placed their answer face down, players/teams will have the option of placing one of their 2 betting chips on the long shot bet of 10 to 1 odds. They will place only a betting chip on the player/team they think got the answer right without even seeing the answers. You can bet on yourself if you are that confident. After everyone has had an opportunity to place a long shot bet if they want, everyone will reveal their answers and place them on the board from lowest to highest. Players will go around the table placing their betting chips on the answer they think is the closest without going over. Think Price is Right when players are guessing the price of an item. Players also have the option to place a bet on red or black in case they are really not sure. In later rounds players will have chips from their earnings that they won during previous rounds, they can place those under their betting chip to add more value to their bet. Warning, if you are wrong, you lose it all. After everyone has placed their bets, the answer is read and the winning answer is figured out. The Banker will then pay out the winnings to all who placed the proper bets. In case you are unfamiliar with betting odds and payouts, a bid on a 3 to 1 pay out of 100 dollars will net your your 100 dollars back plus 300 more. 1 to 1 would double the amount you put in and 10 to 1 would give 1,000 plus the 100 you bet. After everyone has their money, you will start the next round with a new question and keep going through 7 rounds. After 7 rounds the player/team with the most money wins the game. More importantly I hope that everyone had a great time playing.

Final Thoughts Vegas Wits & Wagers adds more options to an already great party game. Wits & Wagers in general is a great party game that plays well on any night you have people over. This game can also be used as a conversation starter at times about different questions in the game. I really like the mat and feel it makes it a complete game and easier to play. I like the various betting odds to earn chips rather than just trying to guess the correct answer. Some will feel it is unnecessary add on, but now that I own it, I wouldn't want to play without the mat. I like that NorthStar Games offers the option to buy the questions from other versions of the game without having to buy a whole new game. This allows you to collect the whole series and play with the mat. More variety is always nice. As long as the price point is not high, I see this Vegas mat being a must own for any Wits & Wagers fan. I am glad to add it to my collection of Wits & Wagers and now I hope for some comic book and sport theme question sets.

Taco gives Vegas Wits & Wagers a rating of...

This rating represents the Vegas addition as well as the whole Wits & Wagers series

Pros:+ Fun party game with new Vegas style rules+Neoprene mat is very nice and large for a big group of players+More questions are always appreciated+Dual sided mat for previous version of gameplay

Cons:- Mat investment may be a higher cost for initial entry into Wits & Wagers (note: Price point unknown at time of review)- Would love to see question sets on various specific topics.